National Civil Rights Museum

Extraordinary. Powerful. Beautiful. Eye-opening.

Saturday's trip to the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee was well worth the wait.  We've been anticipating this trip since day one.  Let me begin by saying that this should be a mandatory visit for any citizen of the United States.  

Hallie, Larissa and I ventured up to Germantown Friday afternoon (sans Ben) to stay with a dear old friend of my family's, Mrs. Barbara Apperson.  At the age of seventy-four, she participates in weekly dramatic readings of Shakespeare, studies Jungian Psychology, takes literature courses at the University, and is a tremendous gardener and cook.  We were delighted to have Mrs. Apperson accompany us to the Museum and appreciative of her gracious hospitality.

Where to begin? I think that this museum is a great reminder of the on-going struggle for civil rights in America, and in particular for the important roles that Martin Luther King, Jr. and others played.  The museum is essentially a collection of very detailed and informative summaries of history, film footage, photographs, original documents and newspaper clippings, telephone recordings and text, lots and lots of text.  

 

Our visit began with a viewing of the documentary entitled 'Witness: From the Balcony of Room 306'.  And so it happened, on April 4,1968, the Revered Samuel “Billy” Kyles stood beside Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee and bore witness to his brutal assassination.  The film unfolds through Rev. Kyles’ recollections of those last moments and the days leading up to them.  I was reminded again of why Dr. King made that last trip to Memphis and felt as if I was invited inside the last hours of his short life.  The film includes testimony from other civil rights luminaries such as Maxine Smith and Dr. Benjamin Hooks as well as other contemporaries of Dr. King.  I found it a poignant retelling of a crucial turning point in the civil rights movement and a pressing reminder of Dr. King’s impact on the movement and our nation.

On to the exhibit: I imagine a quick run through could be done in an hour or so (if you happen to have young children, we ran into many).  However, we spent a good three to four hours critically reading, watching, listening and digesting all of the information before us.

I especially liked that the exhibits were each separated into the individual protests, which offered me a greater perspective about the movement as a whole.  In my mind, it is easy for the events of the Civil Rights Movement to just sort of bundle up together as one big chunk of history; but to see the movement spread out across time and to see how each protest built upon the last was quite fascinating.  

I found the second half of the museum - located across the street - not quite as effective as the first.  This section focuses mainly on the investigation of James Earl Ray - intriguing for conspiracy theorists, I suppose.

After our tour was complete, I just sort of stood and looked up at Motel Lorraine and the balcony on which Dr. King was shot on an April afternoon, 1968. So often I have seen pictures of Dr. King, Jesse Jackson, and Rev. Abernathy together on that very balcony.  Neither words nor photographs do this event justice.  The best I can do is to encourage everyone to go visit the museum for themselves.